Abstract:
When various dialects enter in intense and prolonged mutual contact in a new sociological setting, they may converge (Weinreich 1954, Trudgill 1986) in a process of koineisation (Chambers & Trudgill 1980). This situation occurs with enhanced intensity in newly-colonized areas, in so-called language islands (Rosenberg 1994): convergence of a conglomerate of mutually intelligible dialects towards this new koinè. In this talk we study a well-known, but often ignored mechanism and outcome: retreat to default settings, the rise of the unmarked. The case study pursued here is the complete loss of the infinitival prefix tau ‘to’ in Pomeranian, a West Germanic language, extinct in Europe, but still spoken in isolated communities in Brazil. While the original Pomeranian dialects in Europe had a considerable amount of variation in this particular domain, Pomeranian in Brazil has converged to a remarkably uniform new construction, which was not present in Europe in the days of emigration. We will evaluate the koineisation hypothesis vis-a vis the alternative that language contact with Portuguese be at stake.

About ComSyn

ComSyn started as discussion group about Comparative Syntax at Leiden University Center for Linguistics (LUCL). Now, it is primarily a series of lectures about (comparative) syntax. Speakers from all over the world are very welcome to present their work in an informal setting. ComSyn is the perfect place to present work in progress, do a mock defense, do dry runs for a conference or simply present a syntactic problem one would like to share with other people. If you have any suggestions, please contact one of the organisers, Martin Kroon, Hang Cheng, and Astrid van Alem.